To outdoor enthusiasts and others who wish to convey food, ice chests are a valuable and trusted resource. Ice chests are insulated enclosures that can be used to heat, cool, and/or prevent or delay external environmental conditions from affecting the temperature change of food or other items in the enclosure. Generally, an ice chest is filled with ice and food articles. The ice helps keep the food cold. Foods that are more desirable when cold, and food that would otherwise spoil, if kept at the ambient external temperature can therefore be preserved for later use by placing it in the ice chest.
However, ice chests suffer from several significant problems. One of these is that when the external temperature is above freezing the ice in an ice chest will eventually change to a liquid state. No ice chest provides perfect insulation. The resulting ice water mixture, or eventually water alone, can be a nuisance. For example, it is common to keep raw meats, cheese, or other such food items in a cooler. As the ice melts and phase changes into water, the food is increasingly subject to inundation by the water. This can cause the food (or other items in the ice chest) to spoil or be undesirable for consumption. In addition, the water can be dirty and/or the food can contaminate the water making the cooler unsanitary and potentially unsafe.
For example, it is not uncommon for canned drinks to be held in a cooler with raw meats. When the ice in the cooler melts, the meat and water come in contact. Bacteria and other toxins can then be transported from the meat through the water to the surface of the can where a person might place their mouth. This situation is both unsanitary and unsafe.
Other methods and systems have attempted to remedy this situation in a number of ways. For example, some prior art methods use custom trays to hold items near the top of an ice chest. However, these inventions are often expensive, inconvenient, and not adaptable to multiple ice chest shapes and sizes. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an adaptable suspension device for use in containers, environmental enclosures, and other containers like ice chests.